The concept of Main Pass

In basketball, every last pass before a field goal made (or foul play plus at least one free throw made) is counted as an assist.

In the NBA and NCAA, in addition to the normal assist situation, every field goal attempt which subsequently results in an offensive rebound plus a field goal made, counts also as an assist, because under those two paradigms every last complete ball trajectory between two teammates uninterrupted by opposing players must be considered as such.

However, this not occurs under FIBA rules. Moreover, the guidelines for FIBA ??statisticians is very explicit when states that "not every spectacular pass means an assist." Should it be? Not always. The statistician should allow to consider special cases.

For example. Team A loses by one with 2.5 seconds remaining and no timeouts available. Whereas the last play of Team B was a field goal made (which caused the advancement in the score), A is forced to restore from its own end line. A5 sends a hail mary pass that crosses three quarter court (the game clock didn't run as it's the last minute of the period; the time begins to run when the inbounds pass receiver makes contact with the ball), A2 (being blocked by B1) in jump effort taps the ball (it means, slaps it with the palm of his hand) and A3 with almost no time to react catches it and shoots to the hoop. It's in, and Team A wins.

It should compute an assist to A5 only by the spectacular lob pass that crosses the entire field, or only to A2 because his tap was the last pass, by the way, a mere contact with the ball without necessarily having the intention to assist? In this case both of them should be credited with an assist: A2 as he was the author of the final pass, and A5 as well, not for his spectacular play but his pass was vital and necessary for the play to occur.

This is a typical case of a double assist, as in ice hockey, but there are also cases where the assist is not necessarily the last pass of the possession. We should take the spectacularity of a pass into account if and only if it's the main thing in a play: therefore, we're willing to talk about the concept of main pass.Matias Barmat (@worldhoopstats)